I grew up mentored by hunters other than my father who was deceased. Gun safety & hunting ethics were stressed & rigidly enforced. You did not shoot birds on the ground period! How you took game was considered more important than coming home with a full game bag. I lived in fear that I would commit a transgression that would result in my not being invited to hunt w/my mentors in the future.
When I went away to college & (in a state where a loaded gun in the vehicle & road hunting was legal) I discovered that the hunting ethics I grew up with were not universal. Ground swatting birds was considered normal & sensible if possible & a full limit or more if you could get away with it was considered the measurement of a successful hunt.
As much as I hate to admit it I participated in some of this due to peer pressure but I always felt guilty about it. It was harvesting, not hunting & not enjoyable to me.
If you are a subsistence hunter I guess anything goes but I don't think many posters here qualify as subsistence hunters & other than stopping a wounded bird that is running (assuming no dogs or people are in danger) I can't see any justification for ground swatting a game bird.
My mentors were correct in that the quality of the hunt was much more important than the weight of the game bag after the hunt & I wish that I had always remembered that.
No problem with the above, BM. I much agree. But ......... you gave only two qualifications for shooting a grouse on the ground or off a limb, and then stated that otherwise it would not be necessary. That is cut and dried, but Ted told of a perfectly good reason. That negates your blanket statement. Your strict ethics would deny an old man, unable to swing a gun on a flushing bird, the right to harvest one more grouse for his table. Chops ........... busted.
